President's Office makes statement on disrupted inspection near Shumy

According to the report, Ukraine received a number of contradictory demands that distort the nature of the reached agreements.

"As we envisaged, representatives of illegal armed groups in ORDLO [certain areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions] did not expect a constructive position from Ukraine. Belief in their own propaganda and detachment from reality prevent them from adequately assessing what is going on. As of this morning, we received a number of contradictory demands that distort the nature of the ceasefire agreements and further humiliate the OSCE as an authoritative and objective mediator. Therefore, a 'one-time inspection' of one point agreed within the security subgroup of the TCG [Trilateral Contact Group] will not take place due to constantly changing requests from the Russian side," the report reads.

The President's Office recalled that the OSCE had repeatedly confirmed that the Ukrainian side has not violated the terms of the ceasefire in Donbas in any way. Ukraine has faithfully complied with all ceasefire requirements for six weeks since July 27. According to the report, Ukraine wants to do all to move from the ceasefire in Donbas to lasting peace, representatives of illegal armed groups demonstrate that they have a completely different goal, "namely PR instead of peace."

"If [illegal armed groups] in Donetsk cannot find the settlement of Shumy in the Donetsk region on the map of Europe, about which we have repeatedly heard complaints, and now randomly select new settlements for the inspection, we can only sympathize with them," the report said.

The President's Office stressed that the Ukrainian side, "in good faith and for the final confirmation of its honesty," had agreed that an OSCE representative, in the presence of representatives of the parties on the contact line, could record the absence of any violations of ceasefire agreements by Ukraine.

At the same time, the President's Office said that the Ukrainian side had made a proposal to inspect the areas of the location of illegal armed groups in ORDLO, where the monitoring mission did record the violations.

"However, we did not receive an adequate answer. The proposed format provided for the technical nature of such actions: in civilian clothes, without odious representatives. It had to be a purely technical procedure. However, today it is impossible for objective reasons, the key reason being the absence of violations from our side. Quarantine restrictions also affect the details of how the inspection could take place near Shumy," the report said.

"Given all this - the actual refusal of Russia and representatives of illegal armed groups in ORDLO to adhere to the reached agreements and work on the basis of common sense in order to confirm true facts about the situation on the contact line - we state that the inspection near Shumy in the Donetsk region cannot be conducted," the President's Office said.

On September 9, the Trilateral Contact Group agreed to conduct a joint inspection in the area of Shumy with the participation of an OSCE representative, as well as representatives of certain areas of the Donetsk region (ORDO).

On September 10, the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the TCG, Leonid Kravchuk, addressed a letter to the OSCE representative in the Trilateral Contact Group with a request to postpone today's meeting near the village of Shumy, the Donetsk region. The document states that the Russian side and its invited representatives from ORDO put forward new requirements that were not discussed during an extraordinary video conference of the Trilateral Contact Group on September 9.

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